The Need For Speed franchise has always been a hit amongst gamers, that was until the last one or two releases.

Games such as Grid and Forza set new standards in the racing market, and Need For Speed just kept with their arcade style driving losing a few gamers that hindered for that real driving experience.

The latest edition to the Need For Speed franchise is Shift and it is up for some serious competition later this year from the likes of Forza Motorsport 3, but if the trailer bellow is what we can go by I’m sure they will start regain the gamers they lost.

Imagine a racing game built by racers for racers and you’ll have a good idea of what to expect with Need for Speed SHIFT. It’ll introduce gamers into a level of realism never before seen in a Need for Speed title, offering an incredible authentic and immersive driving experience. Need for Speed SHIFT has been designed to replicate the true feeling of racing high-end performance cars and features a stunningly realistic first-person cockpit viewpoint and an all-new crash engine which offers an unrivaled sensation of racing at high speed.

The game is being developed using a collaborative model with some of the best racing game talent from around the world. Some key names behind the game are Michael Mann (executive producer at Black Box), Patrick Soderlund (senior vp of EA Games) and Slightly Mad Studios in London. SMS, or to give them their former name, Blimey, should be well-known to the racing crowd as the developers behind such classic racing games as GT Legends and GTR 2.

Need For Speed: Shift will be available later this year. It will be available on PS3, Xbox 360, PC and PSP.